A Spectacular Match
Echizen Ryoga's casual attitude and extremely cold words reached Muneyoshi's ears.
His heart sank instantly.
Echizen Ryoga boasting that he wanted to make Muneyoshi's signature move his own.
Because of his ability to devour, which he cannot control, it is a passive skill.
It's always open; Echizen Ryoga he wants to. He can take it off whether he wants to or not; it's beyond his control.
This is also the most dangerous aspect of the match against Echizen Ryoga.
But this is not the reason he dares to act so violently!
"Hmph! You want to devour my ultimate move?"
"Then you should give it a try!"
Muneyoshi was furious, Glowing Flame burned even more intensely. He stared at the strike that turned into white light and moved his feet quickly.
Tap tap tap...
"Gotcha! Right here!"
Muneyoshi abruptly stopped his running foot, canceling out his body's inertia, and then quickly straightened up. He used the kinetic energy from running to lift his arm and swing it downwards.
Bang!
A flash of light disappeared in an instant, and the tennis ball, accompanied by flickering light and shadow, flew back again.
"No wonder he's world-famous; his speed, strength, and technique are all excellent!"
Echizen Ryoga, as his rival, was also silently assessing Saeki Muneyoshi's performance.
After all, no matter how much you hear or see, it's not as good as doing it yourself and seeing for yourself.
Of course, even after realizing Muneyoshi's strength, he still maintained a relaxed and composed expression.
"As expected of the guy who was hailed as one of the strongest junior high students last year, alongside Zeus of Greece, I acknowledge your talent, but I don't agree with the title of 'strongest'!"
While he was commenting on Muneyoshi's performance, he showed no mercy in his actions.
With a slip of his foot, Echizen Ryoga landed in the path of the tennis ball. Before the ball even hit the ground, he swung his racket, his upper body muscles bulging, and an astonishing aura rose up.
Bang!
A solid and powerful strike.
Saeki Muneyoshi felt a blur before his eyes; the tennis ball seemed to have been suddenly wiped away from his vision, leaving only a white afterimage drifting through the light and shadow.
The light and shadows scattered, everything returned to normal, and the tennis ball bounced out from the left half of the court.
His clean and decisive strikes were sharper than anyone else Saeki Muneyoshi had ever seen.
"Echizen Ryoga scores, score 30-0."
"A tennis system that perfectly integrates speed, technique, and power?"
The referee announced the score, which made Muneyoshi even more calm. Although there was a gap, it was a gap that was visible.
Since a regular shot can't compare, then let's make up for it with a special move!
Echizen Ryoga continues with the kickoff.
Bang!
His Twist Serve has become increasingly simple and unadorned, but for an opponent, the angle and speed of this serve can leave most people feeling hopeless.
Saeki Muneyoshi was half-crouched, his eyes flashing with a dark, eerie light and leaping golden light.
With his mind focused intensely, the flying tennis ball seemed to slowly accumulate in his vision, like afterimages.
I saw it!
Muneyoshi quickly determined the ball's landing point.
Bang!
With his full power unleashed, Muneyoshi's muscles contorted into a single, powerful mass, and all his joints began to crack and pop.
With a sudden stomp of his foot backward, the swinging racket was wreathed in dazzling golden light, and the tennis ball seemed to transform into a terrifying bolt of lightning, instantly landing in the opposite half of the court.
"It's light? Hahaha, light and darkness as one, what a surprise!"
Echizen Ryoga was overjoyed. The two different paths of light and darkness had actually appeared in Saeki Muneyoshi. It was as if by absorbing him, he could expand his own path by a large margin.
"What a fantastic opportunity! Give me all your achievements!"
Bang!
With a calm wave of his arm, Echizen Ryoga moment, the golden light continued to fly towards Saeki Muneyoshi's feet.
The speed didn't decrease at all; in fact, it became even faster with his swing, and the tennis ball disappeared from the court once again.
"Hmph! If you want it, then bring it on! Glowing Flame!"
Saeki Muneyoshi sneered. As the Darkness Domain receded, he heightened his senses to the extreme, and detected the trail as Echizen Ryoga's shot flew towards him.
Muneyoshi swung his racket towards an empty spot.
Like a slash, the racket swung, and a purplish-black light instantly forced the tennis ball out.
Chaotic Flower Burial!
Sizzle!
After a loud bang, surging darkness, accompanied by spiritual energy, burst forth as a wave of energy, and dense purplish-black light transformed into the marks of a blade, slicing through the entire area.
Within this sphere, the burning Glowing Flame not only contain intense darkness and destructive power, but are also filled with all sorts of extreme emotions.
"Ha! The way you combine mental power with darkness... Your development of darkness is indeed quite diverse!"
Although Echizen Ryoga said this, the extreme emotions that kept assaulting his mind still caused his attention and concentration to rise to the extreme.
Saeki Muneyoshi's darkness was indeed strange and dangerous, but the more so, the happier he became.
Step... step...
Echizen Ryoga used Single-Footed Split Step, a simple move that, in his hands, made his footwork significantly faster.
Boom!
The tennis ball landed with a loud thud, and with the help of Single-Footed Split Step, Echizen Ryoga caught up with it in a few strides.
Then, with a seemingly effortless strike, he deflected Muneyoshi's powerful and destructive slash.
Bang!
The smash may seem effortless, but the speed of the tennis ball is like a rapidly moving bullet, so fast that it appears and disappears in an instant.
"Good timing!"
A shadow appeared behind Saeki Muneyoshi, his palm seemingly burning with black flames, instantly enveloping the tennis ball. In no time, Ryoga's shot was blocked again.
Then, Muneyoshi raised his arm, creating a surge of air.
Cherry blossoms are falling!
Dark Wave!
The powerful shot that came back squeezed the air aside, creating a terrifyingly strong impact.
The dense black light, like an arrow, rushed towards Echizen Ryoga once again.
Seeing the move that Saeki Muneyoshi used, Echizen Ryoga's eyes gleamed, and he looked at Muneyoshi as if he were looking at a treasure cave.
"Drink it!"
With a roar, Ryoga charged toward the tennis ball shrouded in darkness, a bizarre move that left the spectators bewildered.
"Boom!"
The moment the tennis ball flew towards him, Ryoga met it with his racket. The astonishing Darkness power condensed on the tennis ball almost shattered the force he had concentrated.
A terrifying force surged from his wrist through his arm.
"Now!"
A deep purple light flashed across the racket before disappearing into the darkness.
With a powerful pull, Ryoga sent the tennis ball hurtling back, leaving a trail of deep purple flame.
"Have you made a move yet?!"
Let me call it back for you!
Muneyoshi roared and ran forward quickly, his figure cutting directly into the path of the ball.
"Darkness Domain - Ghosts and Goblins, Spread!"
As Muneyoshi ran to the net, the domain beneath his feet also appeared in front of the net. As soon as he finished speaking, the Darkness Domain, which had been condensed to its extreme, was like a wild horse that had broken free of its reins.
The radiance that Muneyoshi had confined around him began to transform into various forms, carrying all sorts of negative emotions, and opened its jaws to tear at Echizen Ryoga.
"Ghost Dance!"
Bang!
Along with Muneyoshi's return of the ball, countless black Light Ball, and behind them, the tennis ball seemed to be guarded by countless ghosts.
This move tore open a slight opening in the field formed by Echizen Ryoga's spirit.
"They actually managed to do that!"
A faint sense of crisis rose in his heart, Echizen Ryoga Echizen's playful attitude vanished, replaced by an unconscious smile.
Echizen Ryoga's blood, which had cooled due to his travels around the world, began to boil slightly, and a look of amazement appeared in his eyes.
The Saeki Muneyoshi had taken the path of darkness to this point truly amazed him.
The combined power of this pure attack is almost comparable to that of Stage Two attack.
Thinking of this, a glint flashed in Echizen Ryoga's eyes. He slightly tilted his racket horizontally, and a hazy gray aura drifted behind him.
Then the gray mass expanded, transforming into a dome of light, which devoured all the black Light Ball that fell into it.
And then the real tennis ball appeared before his eyes.
Echizen Ryoga remained expressionless, like a samurai drawing his sword, his racket held upside down in mid-air, catching the mustard-yellow light spot.
Hiss hiss hiss~
A small, wildly twisting and tearing mustard ball bobbed on his racket, but it couldn't affect him in the slightest.
Bass!
As if time had shifted, the scene before Muneyoshi's eyes suddenly split into two.
The tennis ball rolled quietly back to his feet.
"This is... all things..."
Call out!
The tennis ball flew back towards Muneyoshi once more, covered by a layer of hazy gray light specks with a blackish-purple hue.
Bang!
"Game! America Echizen Ryoga scores, score 1-0, change of ends."
After a hard-fought battle, Echizen Ryoga won the first game.
The players from other countries watching the match, as well as the members of the Japan Team, all looked surprised.
They hadn't expected that Saeki Muneyoshi of the Japan Team would drag the match into such a fierce battle right from the start, during the opponent's serve.
"Is the opponent really that powerful?"
"That guy actually managed to crack all of Muneyoshi's techniques!"
"There's always someone stronger than you..."
The junior high school students were shocked; this was the first time they had ever seen Saeki Muneyoshi in such a predicament.
The high school students, America's teammates, and the athletes from Australia and South Africa looked rather odd.
"So, the geniuses of the Japan Team are also reckless fools who don't think things through?"
"Isn't he thinking about the upcoming matches?"
"Keep in mind that this is the same format as the World Tournament, a best-of-three series."
Everyone was surprised by Saeki Muneyoshi's choice, entirely because they were unaware of Echizen Ryoga's abilities.
Why did he immediately launch into a battle of world-class skills?
It's because Saeki Muneyoshi knew that the first set was crucial in his match against Echizen Ryoga.
If he can't even win the first round, then once Echizen Ryoga's ultimate technique, Devour, starts to take effect, his opponent will definitely grow bigger and stronger, and he will truly have no chance of winning at all.
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